The invention relates generally to enabling a telephone user to use both a fixed telephone unit and a portable telephone unit and relates more particularly to providing automatic changeovers of service features for the operations of the two telephone units.
In a typical corporate environment, at least some of the employees have assigned work areas that include dedicated telephones. Each dedicated telephone has access to an assigned prime (main) line and several associated lines. The prime line is accessed by a single telephone number. In addition to basic telephone service, the telephones may be enabled to provide extended service features. Telephones having extended features are sometimes referred to as xe2x80x9cfeature phones,xe2x80x9d and are more likely to be digital phones than analog phones.
A private branch exchange (PBX) or proprietary communications server will associate certain features with the prime line of each dedicated telephone. For example, a feature phone may have a Message Waiting indicator (such as a light) which provides a signal that a voice mail message has been stored for retrieval by the user of the telephone. As another example, voice mail messages may be stored in a voice mail box that is accessible only by using a particular telephone. That is, the voice mail boxes may be directly associated with the prime lines, so that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the feature phones and the voice mail boxes. The xe2x80x9clast number redialxe2x80x9d feature and the xe2x80x9csaved number redialxe2x80x9d feature are also often associated with a particular feature phone, so that a user who presses the saved number redial button on his or her phone will cause the number to be saved for that phone, but not any other phone.
The feature phones are typically desktop keysets that are substantially fixed in position. That is, the phones may have cordless handsets, but at least a base member is wired in position. In addition to the wired telephone, a corporate executive may be assigned a wireless portable telephone, such as a cellular phone. Conventionally, the portable telephone has its own prime line that is necessary to distinguish it from telephones of other users, has associated lines, and has features that attempt to duplicate the capabilities of the user""s wired telephone. Based on the design of the portable telephone, these lines and features may not have dedicated physical buttons, but instead may be selectable via xe2x80x9csoftxe2x80x9d keys and associated display. The portable telephone, however, cannot duplicate the functionality of the desktop phone if the two phones have different prime lines. The separate prime lines require separate Message Waiting indicators and separate voice mail boxes. The user having dual phone capability will have two different main telephone numbers, one for the desktop phone and one for the portable phone. Features related to line use apply separately to each of the prime lines. For example, if the user forwards incoming calls to the prime line of the desktop phone, they will not be forwarded to the prime line of the portable phone. The reverse is also true. Moreover, features related to the particular telephone unit will not be interchangeable. For example, if a user changes from using the desktop phone to using the portable phone, activating the last number redial feature on the portable telephone will not select the last number dialed from the desktop phone.
There are known systems for providing cooperation between a fixed telephone unit and a portable member. While not directly related, U.S. Pat. No. 4,839,918 to Hata describes a system for enabling switching between a cordless telephone (that includes a fixed portion and a cordless portable portion) and an ordinary telephone that may be connected to the cordless telephone through a subscriber network. The switching arrangement of Hata allows continuous operation of the telephones, even during failure of the power supply that provides power to the fixed portion of the cordless telephone. The Hata patent is concerned with providing continued basic service to the two telephones of the user, rather than providing a continuation of service features.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,032 to Pinard et al. describes a method of establishing communication to one of multiple devices that are associated with a single telephone number. A home subscriber may have a home telephone, a cellular telephone, and a facsimile machine. The three devices may be assigned three different telephone numbers, or may be assigned a single telephone number that rings the various devices. In accordance with Pinard et al., when an incoming call is received via the telephone number that supports a number of devices, all of the devices ring. After one of the ringing devices is answered, thereby going off-hook, a communication link is established from the calling line only to the device that has gone off-hook. The remaining devices are blocked from use. Thus, the subscriber can be called using a single telephone number and can use whichever device is most convenient, e.g., the home telephone or the cellular telephone. This capability is achieved by storing tables at a central office telephone switching system or a PBX, so that the switching system or PBX can quickly determine which of the devices was used to respond to an incoming call. While the method allows a wired telephone and a wireless telephone to be accessible by means of a single telephone number, the service features such as last number dialed are not universally applied. Rather, the use of a service feature at one of the devices, such as the wired telephone, is independent of the use of the same service feature at another device, such as the wireless telephone.
Another system that allows a wired telephone and a wireless telephone to share a single telephone number is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,757,902 to Mitsuo. A wire port physical number is registered in association with a radio port physical number, so that the wired and wireless telephones can be handled as if they were a single-channel extension phone with a branch switch. A call to the wired telephone can then be transferred to the wireless telephone by a simple operation. The patent notes that the secretary of a subscriber may trigger the transfer of an incoming telephone call from being directed to the wired telephone to being directed to the wireless telephone, if the subscriber is not near the wired telephone. In another embodiment, the two phones are called simultaneously, allowing the subscriber to answer either phone. Again, the concern relates to providing basic connectivity, rather than to providing extended features.
The prior art inventions allow a user to have a dual presence that appears to be a single presence to a calling party. What is needed is a method and system that enable a user to have an increased perception of a single presence, at least with respect to the application of extended service features.
A telecommunications system xe2x80x9crelocatesxe2x80x9d user-specific service features between a fixed telephone unit and a portable telephone unit that are assigned the same prime (main) telephone number. In the preferred embodiment, the fixed telephone unit is a wired telephone and the portable telephone unit is a wireless telephone. The two telephones offer a number of service features, including user-specific features that are available via operations of either of the two telephones. These common user-specific features may include automatic redial features and voice mail accessibility features xe2x80x9cCommon user informationxe2x80x9d is defined herein as the information relevant to implementation of these common user-specific features. Based upon the current availability of the wireless telephone, either the wireless telephone or the wired telephone is selected.as the current exclusive telephone to which the common user information is to be applied. In effect, the method and system provide xe2x80x9cfeature forwarding.xe2x80x9d
The changeover operations are automatically implemented. That is, the user of the telephones is not required to key in any information, such as access codes. Rather, the preferred embodiment automatically monitors the current availability of the wireless telephone by detecting when the wireless telephone is inserted into or removed from a power recharger. Thus, when the wireless telephone is in a power recharging state, the wired telephone is selected as the exclusive telephone unit to which the common user information is applied. Removal of the wireless telephone from the battery recharging state is automatically detected and used to trigger the selection of the wireless telephone as the exclusive telephone unit. In one embodiment, the common user information is stored in memory at a telecommunications switch, such as a private branch exchange (PBX). A partial database that includes the common user information is reassociated each time that there is a changeover in the selection of the exclusive telephone unit. In another embodiment, the common user information is stored in memory at the selected current exclusive telephone unit. In this second embodiment, the partial database of common user information is transferred between the two telephones with each automatic changeover of the selected current exclusive telephone unit. This requires a xe2x80x9chot syncxe2x80x9d operation with each changeover.
There are a number of different possible hardware configurations for providing the cooperation necessary to achieve the automatic changeover. As one alternative, the power recharger may be built into the wired telephone. The built-in recharger is adapted to receive the wireless telephone. As another alternative, the power recharger and the wired telephone are physically independent, but are linked by hardwiring that is used to monitor the presence of the wireless telephone within the recharger. As a third alternative, the recharger and the wired telephone are physically and electrically independent, but may be located in the same general area. In the first and second configurations, the recharger and the wired telephone cooperate to determine when the wireless telephone is in the power recharging state. When the wireless telephone is in the recharger, a contact is closed. The wired telephone monitors the state of the contact. When a change of state occurs, the wired telephone transmits a notification signal to the telecommunications switch, such as a PBX. In the third configuration, the wireless telephone monitors whether or not it is in the power recharging state. When a change of state occurs, the wireless telephone generates a notification signal via its radio channel to the radio base station currently serving that wireless phone. If the radio base station is the xe2x80x9chomexe2x80x9d location for the wireless phone, the change of state is acted upon by the PBX controller to execute the xe2x80x9cfeature forwarding.xe2x80x9d The xe2x80x9chomexe2x80x9d radio base station is the one that provides radio coverage to the area in which the wired phone is located. This additional check is necessary in order to permit the wireless phone user to be able to recharge the phone without enabling the wired phone, e.g., when the user is away from the area in which the wired phone is located.
In all three configurations, the PBX controller (or other central system control) performs the automatic relocation or reallocation of the common user information. The relocation or reallocation is from the memory associated with a previously designated current exclusive telephone unit to a presently designated current exclusive telephone unit. The PBX controller also marks the unused telephone as being out-of-service or otherwise unusable, so that control signals (e.g., ring signals) are only forwarded to the in-use telephone. The restriction on access to the marked out-of-service telephone has the following exceptions: (1) for the first and second configurations, the wired phone is monitored to detect when the wireless phone is placed in the power recharging state, even when the wired phone is out-of-service, and (2) in the third configuration, even when the wireless phone is out-of-service, it is continuously monitored to detect when the phone is removed from the power recharging state.
It is noted that the xe2x80x9ccommon user informationxe2x80x9d does not include all of the information necessary for implementing extended service features. Rather, the common user information relates to those features that are common to both the fixed telephone unit and the portable telephone unit. Because a desktop digital telephone may have more button functions than can be handled by a conventional wireless phone, and because a wireless phone may have unique features or functions (e.g., a continuous record of radio base station connections), the database information of the two phones is not completely common.
An optional component of the system is a feature button which overrides the automatic changeover between the wired phone and the wireless phone. The new feature button may be toggled between an on-state and an off-state and may include an indicator (e.g., a light emitting diode) that is illuminated to indicate that the wired telephone is functional. The new feature button permits the user to activate/deactivate the wired telephone independently of whether or not the wireless telephone is in the recharger. One possible use of this feature button would be to activate the wired telephone when the user has misplaced the wireless telephone.